Call forwarding is a phone feature used for directing incoming telephone calls from one telephone number to another telephone number. Call forwarding has become a ubiquitous feature on phone systems serving companies, cellular, and residential subscribers and has become a tool for both convenience and productivity. With virtually all wireless communications, a call forwarding feature can be employed when the called party wishes to forward calls to a more desired number and/or location.
In today's electronic and mobile environment, it is common for a user to utilize call forwarding as a tool of convenience and/or productivity. For example, a business person may wish to forward all calls from an office phone (landline) to a wireless phone while being away from the office for an extended period of time. An extended period of time may include traveling for business or going out for lunch. Another example may occur when a user of a wireless device wants all calls for the wireless device to be forwarded to a particular location for a period of time, for example, a place of residence, weekend retreat, or office phone. Thus, allowing the user to have all calls directed into one phone system instead of multiple phone systems. As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, call forwarding on wireless devices is a useful tool and is often employed for some of the reasons mentioned above to mention just a few.
A problem with current call forwarding systems in mobile devices is that the user does not have a reminder that calls are forwarded from his/her mobile device to an alternate number, nor does the user have a quick reference as to the number to which calls are forwarded. A user may determine that calls directed to his/her mobile telephone should be forwarded to an alternate telephone number during a prescribed period of time, but because the user is not reminded that calls or forwarded, the user often forgets and leaves the forwarding feature activated beyond the prescribed time. Unfortunately, important calls may be missed, or the user simply may believe he/she is not receiving calls on the mobile telephone when, in fact, calls are being received, but are being forwarded.
In addition, with current call forwarding systems, the user has no method of overriding a call presently being forwarded to an alternate number. That is, if the call forwarding feature is active, the user cannot intercept a call as it is being forwarded to take the call at his/her mobile telephone. For example, if the user's call forwarding feature is active, and he/she forgets to deactivate the feature, the user may not remember calls are being forwarded, and even if the user remembers calls are being forwarded, he/she will not be able to take calls at the mobile telephone until the call forwarding feature is deactivated.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.